


Dean Drabbles

by amazinmango



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Drabble Collection, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-03
Updated: 2013-07-03
Packaged: 2017-12-17 13:09:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/867897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amazinmango/pseuds/amazinmango
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stillshots in a life that's not moving, centered around one man who just might find a way to put one foot forward, and then the other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dean Drabbles

Dean walks into the shop early. He gets things ready. He tugs at the string of his apron behind his neck because it chafes. His polo is getting worn.

Dean smiles for customers. They’re not completely untrue, but at the same time each of them is a little lie.

Dean straightens shelves and organizes displays. He rings up orders and he puts things in bags and he hands over receipts.

Dean pushes a broom across the floor. He turns the lights off at the end of the day, only realizing when his stomach grumbles that he skipped lunch.

Dean goes home, locking the door behind him after he shoves it to get it close completely.

He listens to his old shitty fridge tick to itself in the night.

He closes his eyes.

He sleeps.

– –

It’s not the Dean hates his job. Is that he doesn’t have anything else to do.

It’s not the Dean hates his life. It’s just that he doesn’t have any other one.

It’s not the Dean hates himself.

It’s just that.

Maybe he does.

– –

Dean likes chocolate.

Dean likes beer.

Dean likes food. It might actually be something he can say he loves.

Dean and love have a funny relationship.

He loved his car.

He misses her.

– –

It’s not the Dean is alone.

It’s not even the Dean is lonely.

It’s just that Dean—he’s not good with people, always.

It’s not even that he prefers being alone.

It’s just that it’s easier. He’s used to it.

– –

Dean gets up late.

Dean gets in trouble.

Dean gets his walking papers.

– –

It’s not that Dean meant to get up late. It’s not the Dean doesn’t realize how important the shitty job he once had was. It’s not that Dean doesn’t know he needs to pay rent for his piece-of-crap apartment or that he needed to change the battery in his alarm clock because the outlet never worked anyway.

It’s not that Dean got into trouble very often. It’s just that he’s gotten into trouble before, and he doesn’t have any more straws to be the last one. No more chances, no waivers, will no get-out-of-jail-free cards because he’s still paying for that.

It’s not the Dean’s boss is a bad guy, it’s just that nobody in the normal world has much use for Dean anymore.

Dean is a piece of paper.

Dean is a record.

Dean is a bad penny.

– –

Dean sometimes wonders. About a lot of things. About his car. About Sam.

About his parents. He hasn’t gone to see them in years. They’re still next to each other, under old twisted trees with gnarled branches and big leaves.

Dean doesn’t want to see the shadows of leaves on stone.

Dean doesn’t want to see the look on Sam’s face that he knows isn’t fair to imagine will be there, and he doesn’t want to face whatever it is inside himself that makes him think that what he knows is wrong.

At the same time Dean is afraid he won’t be wrong.

Dean thinks maybe he’s just afraid.

– –

Dean works odd jobs. The kind that he used to get before he landed one that some people would call ‘real.’ Dean knows he could get a position as a mechanic if only the places around town didn’t depend on licensing and certification and education.

Dean has applied at body shops, oil-and-lube joints, service stations, and even gas stations without garages.

Dean had a job at a gas station once.

He lost it.

– –

Sometimes Dean thinks things aren’t so bad.

He’s been in worse places. Sometimes when he thinks that he might pick up the bottle and not put it down, he picks up the phone instead.

He doesn’t dial, but it helps to look at Sam’s name all the same.

\- -

Dean talked to a job placement counselor once, at one of the government-funded centers located around town. There are only a couple, and most of the people behind the desks mean well, but they’re just as tired and empty as he is on some days.

Dean doesn’t blame them, because he understands.

Dean couldn’t get a job driving, as much as he used to love it. It was understandable.

It’s been a long time since Dean has been behind the wheel, and sometimes when he thinks about it his hands start to shake.

– –

Dean gets desperate, because the rent is due.

Dean doesn’t want to get stupid, because he’s done that before.

Dean wants to drink so he doesn’t.

Dean opens his phone and stares at it for a long time.

He wants to call Sammy.

– –

Sam answers his phone.

Sam listens to silence for a long time, but he doesn’t hang up because he knows who it is.

Sam is surprised. Not that Dean called, because he’s been expecting it for a while. Not with anticipation, but just kind of a background awareness. Maybe Sam would’ve called it hope, but he’s not sure.

When Sam does here Dean’s voice, he listens.

It doesn’t hurt as much as he expected it to.

Instead, it feels like something’s been missing and maybe he might have just found it again.

– –

Dean calls a few times, and Sam doesn’t always answer because he’s busy. He always returns Dean’s calls, sometimes to leave a voicemail in turn.

Dean doesn’t always leave a message himself, and when he does it’s more often silence and then a click than not.

Sam doesn’t think that Dean is a coward.

Sam misses him.

– –

Sam starts calling Dean.

– –

At first, Dean is almost surprised that Sam calls him.

It’s kind of nice, just to hear his little brother’s voice. Sam tells them about mundane things, about what he made for dinner, and how he’s getting better at cooking but it’s not as good as when Dean used to make dinner.

Dean hasn’t made dinner for Sam since they were both kids.

Dean doesn’t want to talk about it, but Sam talks about their parents.

So he listens.

– –

Dean isn’t sure what Sam is trying to do, or if Sam is trying to do anything. Sammy’s funny like that, closing up like Dean does sometimes, and other times he sounds so much like a normal human being Dean isn’t sure what to do.

It’s nice, because Dean can just be Dean and not have to worry about what Sam thinks. And then Sam will do something in surprise him, and Dean will think maybe Sam doesn’t hate him.

He starts to think that maybe Sam never did.

– –

Dean doesn’t like that Sam sends him money, and he doesn’t stop looking for jobs. He lands a few here and there, and they never last long. He’s late on rent and his landlord is impatient and if the place wasn’t so seedy, he’d probably have been evicted already.

Dean doesn’t ask to live with Sam and Sam doesn’t offer. They’re too far away, Sam in California and Dean in Kansas. Some days Dean is not sure why he stayed, why he hasn’t left. The streets hold lots of shadows for him, and he has no idea where he’s going. If he’s going anywhere at all.

– –

Dean still doesn’t go to see his parents, but he does go to the scrapyard.

It’s more difficult than he thought it would be.

He gets as far as the arched sign at the entrance, rusty and faded, before he turns around.

He comes back, and he gets farther the next time he visits. He meets Bobby.

He gets a job.

– –

Bobby knows who Dean is.

Bobby knew Dean’s father.

Bobby knew Sam, though Dean doesn’t know if Sam remembers Bobby.

Bobby knows Dean, or at least he used to.

Bobby’s kind of blunt, and his brand of patience is strange. It chafes, and some days Dean isn’t sure that he took the right turn, accepting a job at the scrapyard. There’s a place that he never visits even though he comes close either because he has to or because he sometimes feels the need to approach the painful side of penance sideways.

Bobby doesn’t have time for bullshit, and Dean stays on his couch one night. Dean tells himself it won’t become a thing.

Dean doesn’t leave, though he feels he should. His apartment is long gone and Bobby makes it clear that Dean needs to get his own place.

Somehow, the way he says it implies that Dean will always have a home under Bobby’s roof even though the words don’t say that at all.

Bobby tells Dean to press send when he catches Dean staring at his phone. Dean always snaps it shut, but sometimes, later, he dials.

Bobby catches Dean lingering at the northwest corner of the scrapyard.

Bobby tells Dean to get his head out of his ass.

Bobby’s kind of an asshole.

– –

Dean fixes Bobby’s steps because he’s going to kill himself on them one day. Dean makes dinner when he stays late, because there’s work to be done and Bobby says there’s no sense in Dean walking because Dean’s too stupid to buy a car.

Every time he says it Dean feels the anger rise up and he wants to start a fight. He doesn’t, though sometimes he starts to wonder if that’s exactly what Bobby is aiming for.

Bobby always tells him the food is good and it;s like he’s saying something else again.

Dean slowly starts to believe him.

– –


End file.
